A. Field
This invention relates generally to the field of wireless communication and more particularly to methods by which wireless communications devices access content from a content server (e.g., web server or application server) on a packet switched network. The invention further relates to methods for facilitating the identification and/or reporting of communications problems that users of wireless devices experience when communicating with a content server.
B. Related Art
Wireless communication devices, such as cell phones and wirelessly equipped computing devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and laptop computers, can be configured with appropriate hardware and software so as to be able to engage in wireless packet-data communications and to thereby access a content server on a network such as the Internet. The content server can take a variety of forms, such as a web server responding to web page requests or an application server. A wireless service provider, for instance, may provide a radio access network and packet-data serving node (PDSN) that cooperatively establish wireless packet-data connectivity between a wireless device and a packet-switched network such as the Internet or a private packet network.
In usual practice, a wireless device initiates acquisition of a packet-data connection by sending a packet-data origination message over an air interface access channel to the carrier's radio access network. In response, the radio access network then assigns an air-interface traffic channel for use by the device, and the network signals to a PDSN or other gateway, which negotiates with the device to set up a data link layer connection. In addition, the gateway or a mobile-IP home agent assigns an Internet Protocol (IP) address for use by the device to engage in packet-data communications. The device may then communicate with other entities on the packet-switched network in much the same way as a traditional personal computer would, except that the device would communicate over a wireless air interface and via the radio access network. One type of such communication is web browsing and downloading of content or applications from a web server on a packet switched network.
Despite the advent of the Mobile-IP protocol and communications technology allowing for web browsing using wireless devices, error conditions in wireless web browsing can and do still occur. For example, in the wireless world, when a user operates a wireless web browser (such as a web browser on a wireless handheld device like a Treo™ or web-capable cell phone), the user may encounter various types of problems/conditions that can get in the way of successful acquisition and presentation of content, such as a web page. Some of the problems/conditions are specific to the wireless, mobile, and/or handheld nature of typical wireless web browsing. Further, such problems may be browser-specific problems.
Because such communications problems can and do occur, they interfere with or negatively influence the user's web browsing experience. Such problems reflect badly on both the web site proprietor and the wireless service provider. Similarly, when a wireless device experiences problems accessing content from an application server the problems reflect badly on the application proprietor. This invention addresses this problem and provides for methods and apparatus for reporting error conditions experienced by a plurality of distributed wireless devices.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.